Christie Requests U.S. Aid for New Jersey Snowstorm Expenses
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie
Jin Lee/Bloomberg
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie.
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. Photographer: Jin Lee/Bloomberg
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who was vacationing in Florida as his state dug out from a Dec. 26 blizzard, said he would request federal aid for storm-related expenses.
Christie, whose plane from Orlando landed at 5:30 a.m. local time today, signed a letter about six hours later formally requesting a disaster designation from the Federal Emergency Management Agency for 13 counties. FEMA officials will be in New Jersey on Jan. 3 to begin assessing the damage, Christie said during a press conference in Freehold, which got about two feet (61 centimeters) of snow.
The first-term Republican governor sparked criticism from Democrats for traveling to Walt Disney World with his family as the storm arrived. Lieutenant Governor Kim Guadagno, whose post was created to provide for a backup when the governor is out of state, was in Mexico, leaving Democratic Senate President Stephen Sweeney as acting governor during the blizzard.
“The residents of our state chose to create the position of lieutenant governor for this reason,” Assemblywoman Bonnie Watson Coleman, a Mercer County Democrat who sponsored legislation that created the post, said in a Dec. 28 press release. “In the future I would hope the governor and lieutenant governor will respect this and better coordinate their schedules in order to put the safety and welfare of our residents first.”
A Grade
Christie told reporters he cleared the dual departure with Sweeney on Dec. 22.
“It just rolls off my back,” Christie said of the criticism. “If you’re going to let this kind of stuff bother you then you’re not going to last long in this job, and I expect to be in this job a long time.”
Christie gave state leadership an A for their work during the storm and a B+ for results. “We can always do better,” he said.
“He once again has displayed himself as someone who is getting things done ahead of partisan politics,” Christie said of Sweeney. “While other members of his party decide to use this as once again an opportunity to bang partisan drums, the Senate president and I decided to put the interests of the people ahead of partisan politics.”
The counties Christie is seeking federal aid for are Atlantic, Bergen, Cape May, Cumberland, Essex, Hudson, Middlesex, Monmouth, Morris, Ocean, Passaic, Somerset and Union.
New York City, where some streets went unplowed for three days, didn’t declare a state of emergency.
Excess costs must reach $24.6 million statewide, with each county meeting a separate threshold to apply for a federal disaster declaration, said Christopher Gilbride, a spokesman for the city’s Office of Emergency Management. The data are still being tallied, he said in an e-mail.
To contact the reporter on this story: Dunstan McNichol in Trenton, New Jersey, at dmcnichol@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Mark Tannenbaum at mtannen@bloomberg.net
Rate this Page